Woah god this is a doozy. An incredible piece of tech (minus the pc port) pushed to its limits to do everything for the time, with occasional story beats that work so well for what the engine was designed to do and more. God there is so much to love about this game, it’s timeless look that looks as good on a steam deck as well on a beefy pc, its character models, its attention to detail wow. And all the physics make the world so much fun to drive around and interact with, I don’t love the tank but I definitely enjoy it.
But it’s deeply flawed, which makes it more interesting to play and examine. Pacing in the final third is messy AF, and doesn’t reach the consistency (from memory) of the first two games. Sometimes the batclaw / movement is not as nice as Spider-Man. And the Riddler puzzles are dull for the most part (and also clunky), compared to TOTK. Not to mention the detective work, scanning, hacking is all tedious and unskippable (I just want a mod to turn this all off).
But the combat hits, especially on hard. I struggled a bit towards the end without all the upgrades, which I never felt in the Spider-Man games. Boss fights are surprisingly good, and have big set pieces both on foot and in boat. And the level design is so good for the game I could do challenge levels over and over for stealth sections.
Best open world action game ever? No, I guess TOTK gets that. But if you remove the mid-2010s fluff, the core combat and movement is so much better than 90% of comparable games, it deserves an achievement for that.
Voice acting is also top notch
If I could port the combat / design to Arkham City’s story, this would be 4.5/5. I hope rocksteady gets another attempt at a game like this, there is so much talent in this studio holy moly.
But it’s deeply flawed, which makes it more interesting to play and examine. Pacing in the final third is messy AF, and doesn’t reach the consistency (from memory) of the first two games. Sometimes the batclaw / movement is not as nice as Spider-Man. And the Riddler puzzles are dull for the most part (and also clunky), compared to TOTK. Not to mention the detective work, scanning, hacking is all tedious and unskippable (I just want a mod to turn this all off).
But the combat hits, especially on hard. I struggled a bit towards the end without all the upgrades, which I never felt in the Spider-Man games. Boss fights are surprisingly good, and have big set pieces both on foot and in boat. And the level design is so good for the game I could do challenge levels over and over for stealth sections.
Best open world action game ever? No, I guess TOTK gets that. But if you remove the mid-2010s fluff, the core combat and movement is so much better than 90% of comparable games, it deserves an achievement for that.
Voice acting is also top notch
If I could port the combat / design to Arkham City’s story, this would be 4.5/5. I hope rocksteady gets another attempt at a game like this, there is so much talent in this studio holy moly.